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Affordable Housing

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. One of our key problems is the national criteria, which do not take account of specific local factors. There is a lack of family homes, and an over-supply of flats in comparison with family homes, not just in London but further afield. On previous occasions in the House my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean), and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), have pointed out that there is, effectively, a moratorium on development in their areas, because housing targets for their regions have been met, and the targets are treated as ceilings, not floors. One of the unfortunate consequences of the regional spatial strategies over which the Minister presided is that many communities that wish to expand and to build new housing, both market and affordable, in order to keep the community sustainable, are prevented from doing so. Essentially, national and regional policy has restricted growth in areas where it is genuinely popular. I recognise that there is some resistance to house building in certain parts of the country, but I submit that the right thing to do is to operate by consensus rather than confrontation; that is always the right way to proceed. I notice that the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) is smiling. May I remind him of what he wrote in a recent article entitled ““Decent Homes in a Sustainable Environment: Priorities for Labour Policy””—a title that clearly suggests that, under this Government, we have had neither decent homes nor a sustainable environment? He points out that"““indiscriminate and indifferently designed greenfield developments of low-density executive houses gave the English language the memorable phrase ‘concreting over the countryside’, and fuelled an anti-housing backlash.""In a context where performance was judged by numbers, quality was the obvious casualty while sustainability and energy efficiency rarely if ever got a look in.””" The right hon. Gentleman’s critique of his Government’s policy was prefigured by the comments of the Leader of the Opposition.